Elected Member Briefing Note 2025, No. 77
About this Briefing Note
Report by: Charlene Guild, Strategic Lead - Projects and Programmes
EMBN Number: 077-25
Date: 22 June 2025
Subject: Fire at former Balhousie Primary School, Perth (update at 4.30pm)
Responsible Officer: Lisa Potter, Service Manager - Strategic Communications and Engagement
Details
Purpose
To provide elected members with an update on activity following of a fire in the former Balhousie Primary School in the early hours of this morning (Sunday 22 June 2025).
Briefing Information
Scottish Fire and Rescue Services (SFRS) were alerted to a fire in the former Balhousie Primary School at 12.09am on Sunday 22 June 2025. Six fire appliances were sent to the scene. SFRS remain on scene monitoring hotspots.
A second Incident Management Team meeting to feedback on actions to date and agree next steps took place at 4pm. This briefing note provides an update on the items discussed.
Impact on residents
All addresses which were evacuated during the night have now been visited by the Community Support and Enforcement Team with a welfare check for residents at home. There was no reply at five addresses so follow-up visits will be carried out at those addresses in early evening. Residents spoken to were on the whole in good spirits and very understanding. No further asks for support came from these visits.
Building condition
As indicated in the previous Briefing Note, Stephen Crawford, Strategic Lead - Property Services met with Scottish Fire Service, Police and a structural engineer on site this afternoon.
Based on the engineer's visual assessment of the building the risk of collapse at the Dunkeld Road side of the site is low and Dunkeld Road is expected to re-open shortly.
The fire is out across all of the building apart from the northern end (Balhousie Street side) which is continuing to smoke. A new tender is coming in to dampen down this section later this afternoon. It is anticipated that once this has taken effect Balhousie Street will be able to re-open later today.
The engineer's summary prognosis of the future of the building was not optimistic, but this was based on a visual assessment only while part of the building remained under fire service control, so a further assessment of the building condition will be needed before any decisions are made.
In the meantime, another meeting with the engineer, fire and police will take place tomorrow (Monday) to establish how the building condition impacts on access arrangements to support the investigation. In the meantime, given the site remains part of an active investigation the building and grounds will be secured by a police presence on the ground on a 24-hour basis.
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